


Sam's Final Relapse

by Winnie_Chester



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Drunk Dialing, M/M, Pre-Series, Sam at Stanford, Stanford Era, Unrequited Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-23 14:40:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2551292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winnie_Chester/pseuds/Winnie_Chester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last time Sam calls Dean from Stanford.</p><p>"You know, in almost two years I've never bothered you, never asked you for a thing."</p><p>All fics to date are basically in the same 'verse, but this is especially adjacent to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/2477057">Good Choices and Bad Choices.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Sam's Final Relapse

It was the last time they would speak for two years. 

Sam had talked to Dean seven times since he’d left over a year ago. He’d called Dean five of those times-- all but his birthday and Christmas-- and had been drunk every time. He wouldn’t have called otherwise. 

Tonight was no exception. Sam’s friends had forced him to a house party-- which Sam hated, he always felt so awkward, like such a fake around all these normal kids--and he’d had several beers fairly quickly so he could relax a little bit and get out of his head. He’d smoked some pot too, which had helped. He’d stopped feeling like he was role playing Happy College Student for a moment, but it hadn’t lasted all that long. It never did. 

Now he was sitting alone under a tree in the backyard listening to the party inside and playing with his phone. 

He was going to call Dean. He knew he would, he couldn’t resist it when his defenses were down, but he was taking a minute to hate himself for it, first. 

He wanted to as much as he didn’t. He knew he had to stop doing this. It had been months since he’d relapsed, and he knew he wouldn’t forgive himself for this tomorrow, but he couldn’t stop. He watched his fingers move over the keypad as though they belonged to someone else. 

***

Dean was tired. Exhausted really. He wasn’t taking great care of himself, wasn’t giving himself any downtime to recover, and it was starting to catch up to him. One glance at him and Sammy would have made him stop, would have demanded he take a break, but he was at school, hadn’t seen Dean in over a year. It felt like a lifetime. And Dad was too involved in his own jobs to notice. It turned out that without anyone to say anything about it, Dean was pretty content to just work himself into the ground. 

The thing was, Dean didn’t _want_ to stop. He told himself it was because what he did was important, more important than him, than getting a good nights sleep, and he did believe that. But mostly it was that staying still gave him a chance to think, a chance to be lonely and he just—he couldn’t. So he kept hunting and he kept driving and he tried not to think about anything but the job at all. 

Dean was sitting in his motel room, working his way methodically, joylessly, through a fifth of whiskey--trying to combat all the caffeine buzzing in his veins so he could get the couple of hours he needed before he got back on the road—when his phone rang. 

Probably his father, checking in on the salt and burn. Dean bit back a wave of irritation—it had been routine. He flipped open the phone.

“Got it, Sir.”

“Dean?” 

Not who Dean had been expecting at all. It cut through him like a knife. He hadn’t heard from Sam since he’d called to tell Dean he was taking classes over the summer. Since about the start of Dean’s spiraling, actually. “Sammy?” 

“Yeah. It’s me.” His voice sounded thick, his words overly enunciated. Drunk, probably. Sam only called when he was drunk. Dean though bitterly: if _he_ had that same lack of self-control, he’d be talking to his brother every goddamn day. Dean sighed. 

“Hey kid. How you doin’?” 

“Mm okay,” Sam lied. “At a party. “ Dean could hear the faint thump of music in the background.

“So why you calling me? Shouldn’t you be dancing with some smart chick?” Dean liked thinking of his brother at a party, surrounded by friends, normal and happy, playing beer pong and talking about philosophy or some other boring crap. It was the reason Dean almost never called him. He needed Sam to be happy.

 _Because I miss you,_ thought Sam. _Because it has been over a year and I still can’t think of anyone else, except for you._ “Eh. Party sucks. Shitty music.”

“Since when you do have any taste in music at all?” 

Sam grinned. God he’d missed this. “If you think I have terrible taste you’d be absolutely revolted at what they play at parties here. They were playing Clay Aiken when I came outside.”

Dean made a gagging noise, then took another swig of his whiskey. “Ahh, I see. And you just had to call your big brother to be reminded that there are people in this world with musical discrimination?” 

“Exactly.” Sam stretched out on the grass, looked up at the tree branches silhouetted against the night sky. He thought about asking Dean where he was, what he had gotten, but he didn’t feel like he was entitled to that information anymore. 

Dean let the silence stretch. He wasn’t ever sure what to do with these phone calls, was never emotionally prepared. It hurt, viscerally, not to talk to Sam, not to know about how he was doing, to have no idea if he was eating enough or keeping salt lines down, but it hurt to talk to him, too. It reminded him of everything that he didn’t have anymore. He scrubbed his hand across his face. “So, how’s school then?” 

“It’s good. Real good. Acing all my classes. You know, studying hard,” Sam answered, awkwardly. He used to answer that question in excruciating detail, used to spend the entire walk home from school telling Dean everything from how Matt F. had been caught drawing a dirty picture at recess to exactly which problems on the math test Sam was worried he’d gotten wrong. And now he’d ruined everything and Dean knew almost nothing about his life at all. 

“Got a girl?” Dean asked, skewering Sam through the heart.

Sam felt stupid, ridiculous tears prick at his eyes. “Uh, no. Not yet.” 

“Gotta get on that, kid. You are wasting your Winchester looks!” 

“I’ve got plenty of interest, I just, you know, just haven’t found the right person yet.” _Because I found the right person ages ago and I can’t imagine anyone ever comparing._

Dean laughed, a smidge too bitterly. “I wonder what that would be like.” It made Sam’s heart ache. “But, uh, you deserve that.” 

It occurred to Sam for the first time that Dean may be drunk too. “How are you, man? You okay?”

No one had asked Dean that in months, and it caught him off guard. Deep down, he knew the answer was no. He paused a second too long before answering, with forced cheerfulness “ ‘course! I’m always great!” Sam thought about calling him on it. Selfishly, he wanted to hear Dean say he missed him. Wasn’t the same without him. Thought for a crazy, drunken moment _Just tell me you miss me. Tell me you need me and I’ll drop out and steal a car and meet you halfway between wherever you are and here._

Instead Dean said “You know, a couple new scars, a few more notches on my belt. Same old, same old,” and Sam tried not to feel gutted. “You?”

“I, uh, “ Sam wasn’t sure what to say. “I’m okay, I guess.” Which Sam instantly realized was the wrong choice. Okay in Winchester basically translated to “I’m possibly bleeding out” in normal human English. Sam felt that way sometimes. “I’m just, you know, I, uh, I don’t totally feel like I fit in yet. I—I thought I’d feel normal,” _not in love with my brother_ “by now, and I don’t, and I hate that.” Sam was babbling now, coming way too close to the truth. 

Dean felt it like ice water in his veins. The picture of Sam, studying and happy and living an apple pie life, had been what was keeping him going. Keeping him away. The only thing making all this okay. 

Dean swallowed. “Sam, if you want—“

Sam cut him off, knew he wouldn’t be able to resist if Dean actually said the words. “No!” His voice was too loud, panicky. “No. I need to be here.” 

In Dean’s exhausted, drunken state, it felt a little bit like Sam leaving all over again. 

“Fine. Look, Sam, I have to—I gotta go, okay. Take care of yourself.” Dean hung up before Sam had a chance to answer. Dean finished the whiskey that was left in the bottle in one long drag and tossed it onto the other, empty bed. He turned his phone off, rolled over onto his stomach, and tried to will himself to fall sleep. 

***  
Sam heard the click, felt bile rush into his throat. He hadn’t meant to—he didn’t understand how that whole conversation could go so wrong so suddenly. He was such a fucking fool. He couldn’t keep doing this to Dean, to himself. 

He thought about breaking his phone, but he couldn’t afford a new one so instead he stood up and punched the tree until he could feel the blood from his knuckles running down his wrist. 

He realized that everything he’d done until now had been half measures. He couldn’t get over this, couldn’t get over Dean, as long as he was still holding on. 

He opened his phone. He should call—he was pretty sure Dean wouldn’t pick up, but he should at least leave a message. But he couldn’t make himself hit the button again. He texted, because he was a coward, because he knew this was going to tear Dean asunder. “I’m not going to call you again. Don’t call me either. Just leave me alone, okay?”

He tightened his jaw, hit SEND.

Everything he ever did was wrong, even this.


End file.
